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2026 Continuing Legal Education Seminar: Contemporary Issues in Music and Copyright Law

University of California, Los Angeles

2026 Continuing Legal Education Seminar: Contemporary Issues in Music and Copyright Law

On 23 October 2026, the American Musicological Society, the California Copyright Conference (CCC), and the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music will co-host a day-long Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminar focused on the intersection of forensic musicological analysis, copyright litigation, and artificial intelligence. Speakers include experienced music and entertainment attorneys and forensic musicologists.

This 4-session, in-person and virtual activity has been approved for Minimum Continuing Legal Education Credit by the State Bar of California in the amount of one (1) hour per session. The CCC certifies that this activity conforms to the standards for approved education activities prescribed by the rules and regulations of the State Bar of California governing minimum continuing legal education. Following this in-person and virtual presentation, we will verify your in-person or virtual attendance and email your certificate of attendance to the email provided at registration. Attorneys seeking CLE credit in other jurisdictions are responsible for determining eligibility and applying for credit directly with their respective state accrediting authorities.

The sessions will be held in Lani Hall, located at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in the Schoenberg Music Building, 445 Charles E. Young Drive E, Los Angeles, CA.

Co-hosted by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and the California Copyright Conference

UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music CCC logo

 

Registration

Annual Meeting Attendees

Attendees of the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting may register to attend this seminar using the annual meeting registration form. Those who have already registered for the annual meeting may register for this seminar by completing the special event registration form below. The specially discounted registration price for annual meeting attendees is $100. Ticket prices are the same for the in-person and virtual modalities.

Annual Meeting Registration Special Event Registration

 

General Admission

If you would like to attend the CLE seminar and do not plan to attend the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting, please purchase your ticket using the following button. Tickets are $125 for general admission, $75 for CCC members, and $10 for students (currently enrolled). Ticket prices are the same for the in-person and virtual modalities.

General Admission Tickets

Program & Schedule

More information will be shared as it becomes available.

Welcome Remarks: Part 1 (10:00 a.m.–10:15 a.m. PT)

 

How a Music Copyright Infringement Case Unfolds Procedurally (10:15 a.m.–11:15 a.m. PT)

Before courts issue the decisions discussed in infringement case reviews, music copyright disputes must navigate a lengthy and often complex litigation process. This panel follows the journey of a hypothetical infringement claim from its earliest stages through trial, illustrating how attorneys, rights holders, experts, and courts interact at each step. Panelists will discuss pre-litigation investigations, filing strategies, discovery, expert testimony, summary judgment motions, and trial practice, while highlighting the practical and strategic considerations that influence case outcomes. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how music copyright lawsuits are built, challenged, and ultimately decided.

Moderator: Serona Elton, Esq., Interim Vice Dean, Professor and Chair of Music Industry, University of Miami Frost School of Music, and Head of Educational Partnerships, The Mechanical Licensing Collective 

Panelists: Kenneth D. Freundlich, Esq., Freundlich Law, APC; Benjamin S. Akley, Esq., Pryor Cashman LLP 

 

Coffee Break (11:15 a.m.–11:35 a.m. PT)

 

Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Copying, Coincidence, and Common-ness in Music Copyright Disputes (11:35 a.m.–12:35 p.m. PT)

This session will focus on the decisions attorneys make when evaluating music copyright claims: when apparent similarities are merely commonplace musical elements, when an infringement claim may warrant further investigation or negotiation, and when the evidence is strong enough to support litigation. Using live audio and visual demonstrations, panelists will show how musicologists analyze sound recordings and musical works based on typical questions posed by attorneys. Topics will include melodic comparison, repertoire research, sample authentication, spectrum analysis, and prior-art searches. Panelists will also discuss what questions attorneys should be asking experts, what conclusions experts can reasonably support under FRE 702, and the practical limits of forensic musicological evidence.

Presenters: Katherine M. Leo, Ph.D., J.D., Associate Professor of Music, John C. Griswold Distinguished Professor, Millikin University; Joe Bennett, Ph.D., Professor, Berklee College of Music

 

Lunch Break (12:35 p.m.–2:00 p.m. PT)
Attendees are on their own for lunch. A list of nearby options will be provided.

 

Welcome Remarks: Part 2 (2:00 p.m.–2:10 p.m. PT)

 

Music Copyright Infringement Case Decision Review (2:10 p.m.–3:10 p.m. PT)

This session provides an in-depth review of recent judicial decisions involving copyright infringement claims in the music industry. Panelists will analyze significant cases, with particular attention to evolving legal standards governing substantial similarity, protectable expression, and expert testimony. Through discussion of the underlying musical works and audio examples from the cases themselves, attendees will gain insight into how courts are distinguishing inspiration from infringement and how recent rulings may affect future litigation, licensing, rights management, and creative practices throughout the music industry.

Moderator: To be announced

Panelists: Peter Anderson, Esq., Partner, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP; Katherine M. Leo, Ph.D., J.D., Associate Professor of Music, Millikin University

 

Coffee Break (3:10 p.m.–3:30 p.m. PT)

 

Blurrier Lines than Ever – From the Aftermath of the Blurred Lines Case a Decade Later to AI-created Music (3:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m. PT)

The speakers will explore the evolving intersection of music, copyright law, and artificial intelligence a decade after the landmark Blurred Lines verdict. This will feature testifying musicologist Judith Finell’s musical analysis as presented on behalf of the Marvin Gaye estate in the Blurred Lines trial, including the constellation-of-elements doctrine she developed, as well as the challenges posed to musical creativity protection and expert witnesses in the ensuing decade. The legal analysis and milestone verdicts resulting from the Blurred Lines case will be discussed by attorney Don Franzen. The speakers will then turn to the vulnerability of music to AI replication, and fair use and prior art defenses. There will also be a focus on the potential enhancements and risks in using AI as a virtual creative collaborator in composing and possibly copying pre-existing music, as well as the challenges that this may pose to musicologists and expert witnesses in determining similarity and originality in future copyright disputes.

Presenters: Judith Finell, Musicologist, President, Judith Finell Musicservices Inc. / New York and Los Angeles, Adjunct Professor, Herb Alpert School of Music, UCLA; Don Franzen, Attorney and Adjunct Professor, UCLA Music Industry Program

 

About the Presenters

Authors

  • Benjamin Akley

    Benjamin Akley is a Partner in Pryor Cashman’s Litigation, Intellectual Property, and Media + Entertainment Groups. Benjamin has extensive experience representing high-profile clients in the entertainment, media, sports, fashion, and music industries. His matters include defending nearly 100 music industry artists, producers, writers, labels, and publishers against copyright claims involving more than 1,800 songs; obtaining summary judgment for the screenwriter and studio behind a successful action film franchise in a copyright dispute; successfully arguing that recreations of a classic 1970s film in a biopic constituted fair use; and representing music publishers, record labels, artists, sports management agencies, fashion brands, ticketing companies, film distributors, and other entertainment industry clients in copyright, trademark, contract, fraud, and related disputes. He has also represented an NBA star in connection with trademark claims arising from a footwear collaboration with a major sportswear company.

    Benjamin is a sought-after litigator and thought leader on copyright fair use. He has authored multiple amicus briefs, including two submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, and has lectured on fair use for the New York State Bar Association and firm clients. Benjamin also regularly represents members of the entertainment industry in connection with court approval of minors’ employment contracts under California’s statutory regime. His clients include Universal Music Group, Artist Partner Group, Team Siwa, Darkroom Records, and Arthouse Entertainment, and he has handled approvals for numerous young artists and performers, including Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Kidd G, Glaive, Jazmin Bean, d4vd, Claire Rosinkranz, Michael Gerow, Ivy Reed, Kylie Cantrell, and others, as well as minor contestants on The Voice.

    Benjamin has been recognized among Billboard’s Top Music Lawyers, the Los Angeles Business Journal’s Leaders of Influence: Litigators and Trial Attorneys, and Benchmark Litigation’s 40 & Under list, all in 2026. He was also named one of Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Global Entertainment, Sports & Media Lawyers for Litigation - Entertainment, Media, Fashion for 2025-26 and recognized by Best Lawyers in America as an “Ones to Watch” in Commercial Litigation in 2025. He is admitted to practice in New York and California and is a member of the Beverly Hills Bar Association. He is also involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters, the California Innocence Project, Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Soldiers’ Angels, and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. He earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 2010 and his B.A. from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2006.

  • Peter Anderson

    Peter Anderson is a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP with over four decades of experience in copyright and entertainment litigation.  He represents recording artists, songwriters, record companies, and music publishers, and, for example, he was lead counsel in the Stairway to Heaven litigation, winning a jury verdict of non-infringement followed by an en banc decision of affirmance, Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin, 952 F.3d 1051 (9th Cir. 2020).  He also has obtained dismissals and summary judgments for multiple artists, songwriters, record companies, and music publishers, including, for example, the Weeknd, Mariah Carey, Lil Nas X, and Gwen Stefani, and Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group.

    Peter is a graduate of the UCLA School of Law.  Among other awards and recognitions, Billboard magazine has been named him a Top Music Lawyer in each of the last six years, and this year Variety named him to its 2025 list of Music Legal Elite and The Hollywood Reporter named him in its Music’s 57 Top Power Lawyers.  Peter also is a frequent speaker and panelist.

  • Joe Bennett portrait

    Dr. Joe Bennett is a forensic musicologist, Berklee professor, writer, BBC broadcaster, and researcher, with academic and music industry publications specializing in the songwriting process and song similarity. He has written more than 30 teaching and transcription books, and around 300 articles for Total Guitar, TIDAL, Washington Post, Future Music and many others, relating to classic recordings, guitar techniques and songwriting. His Rockschool compositions for music education are performed by students all over the world. Joe is a member of PRS for Music, a National Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a peer reviewer for OUP, Bloomsbury, and IASPM (International Association for the Study of Popular Music).

    As an academic, his primary areas of research are the psychology of songwriting, and similarity thresholds in popular songs. His PhD was entitled ‘Constraint, Creativity, Copyright and Collaboration in Popular Songwriting Teams’ and it provided the world’s first systematic investigation into collaborative songwriters’ creative processes.

    As a forensic musicologist, Joe assists songwriters, law professionals and music publishers in investigating music plagiarism and copyright infringement. Notable cases include Naxos v. Salmon (UK), Hines v. BMG Rights Mgmt (SDNY), and Browne v. Donalds (CD Cal). Media interviews include NPR, New York Times, LA Times, Newsweek, Forbes, BBC, MTV, The Daily Telegraph, Discovery Channel and The Guardian. As resident musicologist for BBC radio, he broadcasts a weekly “midnight musicology” show on BBC Radio 5 Live. He is listed on the Music Publishers’ Association’s Register of Expert Witness Musicologists and the American Musicological Society’s database of forensic musicologists. Joe blogs about popular music, songwriting and music copyright at joebennett.net.

  • Serona Elton

    Serona Elton is an experienced music industry professional and educator. She is a full professor and the Interim Vice Dean of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. She is also Director/Chair of the Music Industry Program/Department at the school, as well as a Yamaha Master Educator. Additionally, she serves as Head of Educational Partnerships for The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC).

    Previously, Elton worked for Warner Music Group where she held the position of Vice President, Product Management, and EMI Recorded Music North America where she was Vice President, Mechanical Licensing and Repertoire Data Services. She has also provided consulting services to Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Zumba Fitness, and other music-related companies.

    A respected expert, Elton has written numerous articles and book chapters about the music industry and is a co-author of the book Music Business Handbook and Career Guide (13th edition). She is recognized by many for her extensive insight into licensing, royalties, and music industry processes and structures, and has contributed to news stories for NPR’s Marketplace, CNN.com, Billboard, and other outlets. She was awarded the first-ever Music Business Educator of the Year Bizzy Award by the Music Business Association in 2023.

    Elton serves as a council member on the College Music Society's Council on Music Business-Industry and serves as a Director-at-Large on the American Musicological Society Board of Directors. Previously, she has served as president of the Music and Entertainment Industry Educators Association (MEIEA), a trustee of the Copyright Society, chair of the Florida Bar Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Section, and a governor on the Recording Academy, Florida Chapter, Board of Governors. She is also an alumna of the Nashville-based Leadership Music program, and a licensed attorney in New York and Florida.

    ​Elton holds a B.S.B.A. in Finance from the University of Florida, an M.M. in Music Industry from the University of Miami, and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. She also holds certifications in Lean Six Sigma (Yellow Belt) and Instructional Design and Technology.

  • Judith Finell

    Judith Finell is a musicologist and the president of Judith Finell MusicServices Inc., a music consulting firm in New York and Los Angeles, founded 25 years ago in New York. She serves as a consultant and expert witness involving music copyright infringement, prevention of copyright infringement, and a wide variety of music industry and film topics. Recently, Ms. Finell was honored to be the 2018 commencement speaker at UCLA’s Herb Albert School of Music. She was also invited to give a TedX talk on AI-created music recently, and has been featured in television, print, and podcast interviews on many music copyright issues.

    Judith Finell was the testifying expert for the Marvin Gaye family in the milestone “Blurred Lines” case in Federal Court. She has also been the musicology consultant on recent films including the widely released Sinners. She has testified in many other notable copyright infringement trials over the past 20 years. She and her team of musicologists regularly advise HBO, Lionsgate, Grey Advertising, CBS, Warner, Disney, and Sony Pictures on musical works for their commercials, films, and television series. Ms. Finell also frequently advises attorneys, advertising agencies, entertainment and recording companies, publishing firms, and musicians, addressing copyright issues, including those arising from digital sampling, electronic technology and Internet musical usage.

    Ms. Finell was invited to teach forensic musicology at UCLA in 2018, where she continues to co-teach with attorney Don Franzen the only such course in the country. She holds an M.A. degree in musicology from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from UCLA in piano performance. She has written numerous articles and a book in the area of contemporary music and copyright infringement and has appeared in trials on Court TV and before the American Intellectual Property Law Association. She has been a trustee and executive board member of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and has appeared as a guest lecturer at the law schools of Harvard University, UCLA, Stanford, Columbia, Vanderbilt, George Washington, NYU, and Cornell, as well as the Beverly Hills Bar Assn., LA Copyright Society, and the Association of Independent Music Publishers. She is co-founder and editor of Your Inside Track, a newsletter on topics in music and copyright.

  • Don Franzen

    Don Franzen’s practice in the entertainment industry includes sound recordings, live entertainment, film and television, celebrity rights, business formation, and copyright and trademark. Don is admitted to the Bars of the States of California and Hawaii as well as many federal courts. In addition to his legal work, he has acted as a producer on video and audio recording projects involving major performing artists. His legal career has also included exclusive experience in civil litigation, state and federal, on both trial and appellate levels. He is an adjunct professor in the Music Industry Program at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA, and also at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University, where he lectures on music industry law and copyright issues. He has also lectured on entertainment law for the Santa Monica Academy of Entertainment and Technology, the Colburn School of Music, the Berklee School of Music (Valencia, Spain), the Eastman School of Music, and the California Institute of the Arts.  In 2000, he set up the Operalia Foundation, and continues to serve as an officer of that organization. He is a Founding Director of the Los Angeles Opera, and has served on its board of directors since 1986. He is a member of the Board of Heyday Books,  the Board of the Denyce Graves Foundation, and  the Board of Pacific Jazz Orchestra. He is the legal affairs editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books and a co-editor of “Your Inside Track,” a monthly newsletter on law, music, and technology.

  • Kenneth D. Freundlich

    In his 35 years of practice, Kenneth D. Freundlich has primarily focused on resolving complex business, entertainment, and IP disputes and is renowned for representing individuals and companies with his pragmatic aggressiveness, relatability, business acumen, and ability to handle everything from everyday business disputes to complex, ground-breaking cases.

    Ken is a seasoned litigator and trial counsel licensed to practice in the state and federal courts of New York and California (among other courts) and has had notable successes in trials, arbitrations, and administrative proceedings in various settings ranging from California Labor Commission proceedings, to IFTA, Guild, and AAA/JAMS arbitrations, to Copyright Rate Court proceedings, to trial and appellate courts (including the United States Supreme Court). Ken is a well-known participant and moderator in panels concerning entertainment law issues.

    Ken’s experience also includes a stint as the Executive Vice President of Atomic Pop, LLC, an early 2000’s internet-based record company (way ahead of its time) that sought to provide a platform to distribute entertainment content through digital media. At Atomic Pop, Ken was part of the company’s leadership team, navigating through complicated new media legal and business issues, acquisitions, strategic and financial planning, syndication, joint ventures and due diligence management.

    A proud graduate of UCLA’s joint JD/MBA program, Ken is one of the few litigators who does not shy away from the quantitative or business side of cases. Whether it is grilling the opposing party’s experts about complex royalty statements, unraveling a party’s intricate corporate structures and related corporate issues, or negotiating and drafting an agreement to resolve a dispute or pave a way forward in business to maximize a client’s bottom line, Ken’s varied education and experience give him a bespoke set of skills with which to serve his clients.

  • Dr. Katherine M. Leo (Ph.D. Musicology, The Ohio State University; J.D., The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law) is associate professor of music and John C. Griswold distinguished professor at Millikin University. As a multidisciplinary academic and forensic musicologist, Dr. Leo investigates the histories, analytical methods, and ethics of copyright law and the US music industry. She is author of Forensic Musicology and the Blurred Lines of Music Copyright History (Lexington 2021) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Forensic Musicology (OUP forthcoming). Dr. Leo’s research has received international recognition in fields of musicology and law through presentation and publication.